Cover story.

The Sound And The Fury

Orchestra Hall Rehab Proceeds Amid Controversy

Generations of Chicagoans have held a place in their hearts for the elegant auditorium known as Orchestra Hall. One of the classic beaux-arts style concert rooms, it has been home to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for nearly a century.

Although the building has seen minor renovations over the years, Orchestra Hall is essentially the same as it was when it opened in 1904. The dowager of Michigan Avenue has resisted major changes.

FOR THE RECORD - Additional material published Aug. 2, 1995:Corrections and clarifications.A story in Sunday's Arts section about the renovation of Orchestra Hall misspelled the name of one of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra musicians. He is Roger Cline. The Tribune regrets the error.

Until now.

Responding to the desire of orchestra players and management for a building that will meet artistic needs in the next century, trustees of the Orchestral Association are turning an old hall into a new one. The two-year, $105 million renovation and expansion, set for completion in 1997, will transform Orchestra Hall into Symphony Center.

Each previous renovation was embarked upon to correct shortcomings in the hall's original design--and each met with controversy. Given the complicated interrelationship of design and acoustics, it could hardly have been otherwise.

But the modifications and additions begun in May are the most controversial in the facility's history because they are far more radical than any that preceded them.

To obtain a wide perspective on the problems and possible solutions, the Tribune spoke to a number of professionals, including the project's acoustician and principal architect, CSO musicians, staff and trustees, music director Daniel Barenboim, recording engineers and preservationists.

First, a bit of background. Early in 1991 a committee of 39 prominent citizens announced it was feasible to raise as much as $300 million to build a new performing arts center as home for both the Symphony and Lyric Opera. Eventually, however, the CSO trustees killed the plan, preferring the less costly alternative of expanding and renovating their present facility. Lyric Opera trustees then believed they had no alternative but to take a similar course. Lyric's overhaul of the Civic Opera House is set for completion in 1996.

Here, then, are the measures being taken to change the auditorium of Orchestra Hall:

- The stage will be enlarged, with its rear wall extended back about 16 feet across the present alley toward Wabash Avenue.

- The roof, now eight feet above the proscenium arch that defines the stage will be raised to about 36 feet. This will give the hall almost 50 percent more volume--950,000 cubic feet--than at present. (The ceiling, which sound passes through, will remain at its current height.)

- A crown-shaped steel-and-glass canopy, some 40 by 30 feet, is to be installed over the stage to reflect sound to players and main-floor audience members. The canopy is supposed to help players hear one another better and intercept echoes created by sound reflected off the raised roof.

- Seating will be rearranged throughout the hall and 200 seats will be permanently installed in terraced rows behind the orchestra in the area now given to chorus risers.

- Side walls of the auditorium will be reshaped and tilted slightly to direct sound farther back into the hall.

"It's a rather unique balance we seek," says architect Joseph A. Gonzalez of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. "One part is to maintain the scale and intimacy of the space. The second part is to overlay with the appropriate technology so we'll have a venue that will be competitive going into the 21st Century."

The aural effect of the changes, according to project acoustician Lawrence Kirkegaard of Kirkegaard and Associates, will be to increase the hall's reverberation time from 1.5 to 2.2 seconds, while giving increased warmth to low frequencies. He predicts sound will be projected more evenly throughout the hall, including under the balcony and in seats beneath the gallery.

The quality of sound Kirkegaard foresees will be somewhere between Boston's Symphony Hall, one of the finest old auditoriums in North America, and the Berlin Philharmonie, a clear-sounding modern room that is undergoing acoustical adjustments.

Should there be too much reverberation, no problem, Kirkegaard says. He plans to employ a series of velour sound-absorbing strips in the auditorium's upper sound cavity. These are in use at Tanglewood's new Seiji Ozawa Concert Hall, which Kirkegaard designed acoustically, and also at his renovated Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco. (Precedents for the sound reflectors in Orchestra Hall come from Kirkegaard's sonically problematic Pick-Staiger Concert Hall in Evanston and Leo Beranek's Philharmonic Hall in New York's Lincoln Center, an acoustical disaster that had to be gutted and rebuilt.)